Mathematics, biology and physics: Interactions and interdependence

In 2022, biologists are in wonderment at the flood of mathematicians and physicists showing an interest in the biological and medical sciences, little realizing that this interest has a long history that is generally unrecognized by biologists and STEM scientists alike. I will trace a fragment of this history and leave it to the listener to extend their knowledge.

Michael Mackey is a Canadian–American biomathematician who is on the faculty of McGill University. Trained at the University of Kansas (Mathematics) and the University of Washington (Physiology and Biophysics), he holds the Morley Drake Emeritus Chair in Physiology at McGill University (Montréal) as well as being a member of McGill’s Departments of Mathematics and Physics. His research focuses on: 1) the development of mathematical models to describe physiological processes at the cellular and molecular levels; 2) foundational questions in physics related to the nature of irreversibility and the arrow of time; and 3) mathematical questions related to the evolution of densities in infinite dimensional systems. Consult https://www.mcgill.ca/mathematical-physiology-lab/ for more detail if desired.

The seminar is part of the series “I mercoledì del dipartimento”.

Poster (PDF) and link to the Microsoft Teams meeting available at http://cdlab.uniud.it/events/seminar-20220601.